Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Recent Struggles: Why is this happening to me?

The past few weeks since I've decided to respond to God's call to Africa have been somewhat odd. Like, really odd. Things have been happening to me that aren't very fun, and I don't want to be weird but I think it's all related. Let me tell you about it.

So the city where we are going (Nairobi) is almost 6,000 ft. in elevation. 😲 Yeah, it's pretty high up there. For a reference, Wilmington has an elevation of around 30 feet. THIRTY. Compared to 6,000!!! I was just as shocked as you. And I wanted to prepare myself for that. The air will be thinner and I'll be chasing kids around at VBS. For sure I will get out of breath much more easily over there. So I decided to get back into jogging. I wanted a slow start, just jogging a little bit in the park a few times a week. Nothing crazy.

I kid you not, the first week into this new routine I jacked up my knee. I have no idea what I did to it, but it hurts. A lot. It doesn't make sense since I was barely jogging at all. I wasn't pushing myself that much, honestly. It was so weird because I had jogged in the park, went home to clean up, and then go out for a couple of errands, and I didn't feel any pain until I was running errands later that day. The next day it was really out of whack, and has been ever since.

It's hard to explain, but it feels like a muscle cramp in the back of my knee and it won't stop cramping. It'll hurt much more when I move my knee too fast or when I twist my knee trying to get out of a car or move in a different direction suddenly. Maybe it's a muscle tear. Or a knee sprain. Or something with my nerves around my knee. I'm unsure, but I'm going to the doctor today to see what happened (which will cost money). Hopefully I'll get it back to normal soon. In the meantime I can't prepare my body for that 6,000 ft. elevation and it makes me nervous. Why has this happened?

Story number 2: so I dog-sit on the side just for extra money every now and then, and about a week after God had called me to Africa I had a gig. I was excited because I was going to start saving up all of this dog-sitting money just for the Africa trip. Reminder: I'm poor. Haha

So, this dog-sitting gig was an overnight stay and it was at this nice apartment complex. I had pretty much parked wherever I had wanted to park in the past (this was a return customer), and never gotten into any issues. The morning after I spent the night over there I was taking the dogs out for a walk and noticed that my car was gone. Literally, GONE. I had no idea where it was. Well, apparently a tow truck had taken it across town since I was parked in a spot I wasn't supposed to park in. Yeah, I didn't have a very good weekend because of that. As if that weren't enough, I had to pay $100 to get my car back from the towing company, which was more than I was making that weekend for my dog-sitting gig. Essentially, I was losing money instead of making it. This had never happened before until now. Why has this happened?

Honestly, one could say that I just have bad luck or that these things aren't connected. But I think it's so weird that these bad things (that cost money) are happening to me only after I decided to dedicate those things to Africa. I've been a runner in the past and never gotten an injury like this one. Why now? I've dog-sit for this customer in the past and never gotten my car towed. Why now? I truly think that this is Satan's way of trying to deter me from going on this trip. Or at least he's trying to make it harder for me to go.

Pray for my knee and that it would heal soon so I can get back to jogging to prepare myself for Africa. Pray that God would protect me from these unfortunate events. Pray that I would have endurance to go through them and come out stronger than before. Updates to come.